Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent

About the book: From the bestselling author of Burial Rites comes an inspirational memoir about Hannah Kent's travels in Iceland, an extraordinary country that has forged a nation of storytellers.

When she was seventeen years old, Hannah Kent travelled to Iceland from Australia. She had never seen snow before, did not speak a word of Icelandic. 

All she knew was that she wanted to have an experience – to soak up something of the world.

Soon she found herself isolated in a remote part of Iceland in a dark winter. It was a gruelling experience, but she quickly fell in love with the country: with its brutally beautiful landscapes and with its people. 

On returning home, with images of Iceland's towering glaciers and windswept tundras in her dreams, Hannah began to write. 

Now, as a mother and a wife, she looks back to that extraordinary year in Iceland in Always Home, Always Homesick (2025).

About the author: Hannah Kent was born in Adelaide in 1985. She is the co-founder and publishing director of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award. She is the author of Burial Rites (2024), The Good People (2017) and Devotion (2023).

Holy Boy by Lee Heejoo

About the book: One idol.

Four fans.

Worship’s never been bloodier.

Yosep is a K-pop idol with millions of adoring fans. But for four of them, a poster on the wall just won't cut it. They have a plan - a perfect, foolproof plan - to get their idol all to themselves.

Kidnapping Yosep seemed like the ultimate act of love. But inside a secluded mansion, plagued by paranoia and with their grip on reality slowly loosening, the women use increasingly disturbing strategies to keep Yosep in their possession. As their angel's halo slips and their perfect plan unravels, the women must fight not only to keep him, but to keep their secret buried - at all costs.

More than a little unhinged, Holy Boy is an exhilarating descent into the dark side of devotion.

Holy Boy (2026) will be released on 5 February 2026. 

It is translated from the Korean by Joheun Lee.

About the author: Lee Heejoo started her writing career winning the Munhakdongne University Novel Award with her novel Hwansangtong in 2016. She is also the author of the Love World series, the novel Holy Boy, and the short story “Mayumi”.

About the translator: Joheun Lee (Jo) is a literary translator from Korea who has been working as a Korean-to-English freelance translator for several commercial projects. With roots in K-pop fandom and a love of subcultures, she is especially drawn to stories of desire, relationships, and identity by women and queer writers. A UX Designer by day, Jo now lives with her partner and four cats in Shanghai, China.

This House Of Grief by Helen Garner

About the book: On the evening of Father’s Day, 2005, separated husband, Robert Farquharson, was driving his three young sons back to their mom’s house when the car veered off the road and plunged into a dam. 

Farquharson survived the crash, but his boys drowned. 

Was this a tragic accident, or an act of revenge? 

The court case that followed became a national obsession - a macabre parade of witnesses, family members, and the defendant himself, each forced to relive the unthinkable for an audience of millions.

In This House of Grief (originally published in 2014) (2024), celebrated writer Helen Garner tells the definitive and deeply absorbing story of it all, from crash to final verdict. Through a panoply of perspectives, including her own as a member of the public, Garner captures the exacting procedure and brutal spectacle of Australia’s criminal justice system. The result is a richly textured portrait of a man and his broken life, of a community wracked by tragedy, and of the long and torturous road to closure.

Considered a literary institution in Australia, Helen Garner’s incisive nonfiction evokes the keen eye of the New Journalists. Brisk, candid, and never dismissive of its flawed subjects, This House of Grief is a masterwork of literary journalism and a true crime classic, which examines just what we are capable of and how fiercely we hide it from ourselves.

This House of Grief is on Dua Lipa’s Book Club Pick for August 2025, The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and one of the Guardian‘s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

About the author: Helen Garner was born in Geelong, Australia, in 1942. She worked as a high school teacher, then as a freelance journalist. Since 1977, she has published novels, stories, screenplays and works of non-fiction. She is the winner of the 2006 inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature, the 2016 Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Non-fiction, the 2019 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature and the 2023 Australian Society of Authors Medal. Her books include This House of Grief, Monkey Grip and The Children’s Bach.

Truck It! by Bobby Bolton

About the book: What do you do when you have lost everything? You bet it all on a mad idea.

After a broken heart and a bankrupt business left him at rock bottom, Bobby Bolton made a drunken promise in a Wigan pub: he was going to drive to Australia in a converted truck with his dog, Red.

He thought it would be a story of one man and his dog. 

How wrong he was.

Just weeks into his journey, a chance encounter with a beautiful hiker named Marie changed everything. After only two dates, she bravely joined him on the adventure of a lifetime, and their epic love story began.

But their new life on the road was forged in the face of constant danger:

- Bribing corrupt Russian police

- Surviving a mountain track collapse in Italy

- Being interrogated at a Taliban checkpoint

- Rescuing his new girlfriend from a 200-metre fall down a cliff face

Action-packed, hilarious, and full of Northern charm, Truck It! The Drive Around the World that Saved my Life (2025) is the inspirational true story of what happens when you leave it all behind and find love, adventure, and a reason to live again.

Truck It! The Drive Around the World that Saved my Life is a Sunday Times bestseller at No 5, as of 29 July 2025.

About the author: Bobby Bolton grew up in Wigan, a town in Greater Manchester, UK, before moving to London to start his career. By twenty-five, he had quit the 9 to 5 to pursue a dream he had nurtured since a teenager – to run his own business. With a passion for building, and a degree from Loughborough University and a few years’ experience with a property developer, he felt ready to take on the world and the challenges that lay ahead. Little did he know that before he was thirty, his heart would be broken, he would be homeless and near bankrupt. To turn his life around Bobby set out on a crazy adventure, selling all his possessions to buy a truck and drive from his home town of Wigan all the way to Australia. He documents the journey on Instagram as One.Life.Truck.It and now has almost 500,000 followers. Truck It! is Bobby's first memoir of his travels.

Offline Reading Books

The Brain At Rest by Dr Joseph Jebelli

About the book: We are constantly told to make the most of our time. Stop procrastinating. Optimise. To be happy, creative and successful requires discipline and focus. The most important thing is to be efficient with every precious hour. 

But what if all that advice was wrong, and letting the brain rest, and the mind wander, could improve our lives?

Because when we let our brains rest, and our minds wander, something magical happens: the brain’s "default network" switches on, and suddenly we are able to think in completely new ways - be more content, less stressed, and actually more productive. 

Dr Joseph Jebelli proves this surprising and fascinating point in The Brain at Rest: Why Doing Nothing can Change Your Life (2025), blending science and personal stories with practical tips about using the brain’s "default network," which turns itself on when we turn off the constant need to always do and achieve. 

About the author: Dr Joseph Jebelli received a PhD in neuroscience from University College London, then worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Washington. He has written two books, How the Mind Changed and In Pursuit of Memory, which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize and longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. He lives in London.

Recipe For Murder (True Crime) by Duncan McNab

About the book: Recipe for Murder (2025) is the astonishing story of Erin Patterson and the mushroom murder trial that horrified and enthralled the world. 

On 29 July 2023, the family and friends of Erin Patterson sat down for lunch in Leongatha, a small town in rural Australia. 

On the menu: beef Wellington. 

The next day, four of the guests were hospitalised, and within a week, Erin’s mother- and father-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson, and her husband’s aunt Heather Wilkinson were dead. Heather’s husband, Ian, survived but only just.

Doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning, and four months later, Patterson was arrested and charged with three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. 

The case immediately captured media attention around the world. Had Patterson deliberately killed her estranged husband’s parents and aunt? 

Was the lunch a recipe for murder?

In this gripping new book, bestselling author, investigative journalist and former detective Duncan McNab expertly examines the sequence of events that left three people dead, and a community and family shattered. With forensic detail he brings to life the twists and turns of the trial and the dramatic final verdict: GUILTY!

About the author: Duncan McNab is a former police detective, private investigator specialising in criminal defence, investigative journalist and media adviser to government and the private sector. He is the author of twelve books, including the phenomenally bestselling Dead Man Running (with Ross Coulthart), Snapshot Killer, Waterfront and Roger Rogerson. Duncan was a producer on the Kennedy and Clarion award-winning Murder Uncovered series (7 Network) in 2017 and creator/series producer of the groundbreaking Australia Behind Bars (9 Network/ITV). 

In 2017, his book, Getting Away with Murder, won the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime. In the same year, his bestselling book on disgraced former detective and convicted murderer, Roger Rogerson, was shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime. Duncan's forensic eye and engaging style makes him the perfect author to deep dive into the Erin Patterson case. 

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Borneo: The History Of An Enigma by Olivier Hein

About the book: Borneo: The History of an Enigma (2026) is a fun and fascinating history of an island best known for tropical rainforests and captivating wildlife but with a much bigger story to tell.

The world’s third-largest island, and the only one administered by three different sovereign nations, Borneo is something of a mystery. Home to an incredibly diverse indigenous population, once infamous for headhunting; a hotbed of military activity during World War II; a poster child for the ecological movement even as its rainforest is destroyed; and the host of Indonesia’s planned new capital city, Nusantara - Borneo’s past, present and future are nothing if not eclectic.

But hidden under its enigmatic façade is an extraordinary island at the centre of world affairs in ancient times, yet often aloof from them. From early visitors bringing new religions to the island, to a fluctuating relationship with China, to a time when piracy ruled, Olivier Hein’s sweeping tale uncovers the little-known events that shaped not only Borneo but the whole Malay Archipelago.

Linking Indonesian, Malaysian and Bruneian history, Hein brings together, for the first time, all the elements that make this island so unique. With Borneo sitting uncomfortably in the firing line of today’s great global power shift from Trans-Atlantic to Trans-Pacific, and now attracting millions of visitors a year, the story of this rich and complex island has never been more relevant.

About the author: Olivier Hein is a Mauritian-British author, whose books include Star and Key, a history of Mauritius (also published by Hurst). Formerly a UN, UK and OSCE diplomat, posted to New York, Paris, Kosovo and Turkmenistan, he also contributes to The Chap magazine. He lives with his family in the Cotswolds.

Entitled: The Rise And Fall Of The House of York by Andrew Lownie

About the book: What is Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York (2025) by Andrew Lownie about?

Entitled is the first joint biography of the Duke and Duchess of York and the first full biography of either of them, by renowned royal biographer and literary agent, Andrew Lownie.

Drawing on four years of research, numerous FOI requests and interviews with over a hundred people who have never spoken before, the book traces the lives of the late Queen’s second son and his ex-wife through their childhoods, courtship, marriage, divorce, careers, and royal and charitable activities.

Still living in the same house, they claim to be "the happiest divorced couple in the world". The book investigates the reality of their relationship and their love lives. It charts Andrew’s record in the Falklands, his business activities and reveals details of how the couple have been able financially to sustain their extravagant lifestyles. It also recounts the full story of the Yorks’ links with Jeffrey Epstein.

Chronicling their lives in parallel, the picture that emerges is of a spoilt prince unable to connect and a duchess pushed by her insecurities into a desperate need to maintain the attention her ‘royal’ status brought. Rigorously researched and packed full of revelations, this is eye-watering biography at its best.

Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York is the Sunday Times #1 Bestseller, a Book of the Year for The Times, Financial Times and Waterstones in 2025.

About the author: Andrew Lownie was born in 1961 and was educated in Britain and America. He read history at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Union. He went on to gain an MSc at Edinburgh University and spend a year at the College of Law in London.

After a period as a bookseller and journalist, he began his publishing career as the graduate trainee at Hodder & Stoughton. In 1985, he became an agent at John Farquharson, now part of Curtis Brown, and the following year became the then youngest director in British publishing when he was appointed a director.

Since 1984, he has written and reviewed for a range of newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Spectator and Guardian, which has given him good journalistic contacts.

As an author himself, most notably of a biography of John Buchan and a literary companion to Edinburgh, he has an understanding of the issues and problems affecting writers. He is a member of the Society of Authors and was until recently the literary agent to the international writers' organisation PEN. In 1998, he founded The Biographers Club, a monthly dining society for biographers and those involved in promoting biography, and The Biographers' Club Prize which supports first-time biographers.

Animal Farm

I Love These Cold Days In London

Modern Life Sucks

Floating Home by Adam Lind

About the book: What if the life you're chasing… isn't the one you truly want?

After losing his father, Adam Lind made a decision that changed everything. He left behind the expected path and spent five years hitchhiking across twenty-six countries - learning from the people who picked him up, sleeping under open skies, and discovering the extraordinary hidden in the everyday. 

Now, aboard his stubbornly charming narrowboat The Raman Rose, Adam continues that journey on the UK's waterways - and invites us to join him.

Blending travel memoir, philosophy and the search for meaning, Floating Home: Lessons from a Life Less Ordinary (2025) reveals how adventure, community, and compassion can reshape our lives. 

With humour and heart, Adam shows that happiness is not found by following the rules - but by choosing your own way, one small brave step at a time.

About the author: Adam Lind is a charismatic, wise soul who advocates for living with purpose, vulnerability and self-expression. Having used his own challenges to excel in his career and personal life as a mindset coach & content creator. Through living on a narrowboat on the British waterways, Adam has unexpectedly built a large online community of over 900,000 loyal and engaged likeminded souls who enjoy soaking up his passion to live a life of meaning. Adam has appeared on Channel 4’s Narrow Escapes and has been featured in publications including The New York Post, Business Insider, The Sun, and others.